


Idle Hands

by Owlship



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Auslan (Australian Sign Language), F/F, F/M, Fluff, Implied/Referenced Sexual Harassment, Misunderstandings, Parent Max
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-29
Updated: 2015-10-29
Packaged: 2018-04-28 17:37:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5099648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Owlship/pseuds/Owlship
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"we take the same elevator every day and due to a misunderstanding I assumed you didn’t speak english and I’ve been talking to my friend about how hot you are for three weeks and apparently my friend has known from the start but you agreed not to tell me bc you both think its hilarious what the fuck" au</p>
            </blockquote>





	Idle Hands

**Author's Note:**

> Apparently I forgot to upload this! Prompt taken from [this list](http://v8roadworrier.tumblr.com/post/131240180720/theappleppielifestyle-i-got-in-my-car-and-you)
> 
> All signs, bar the ASL alphabet, have been taken from [www.auslan.org.au](http://www.auslan.org.au/) and are hopefully not too glaringly wrong.
> 
> I added the sexual harassment tag to be on the safe side- this is meant to be a silly fic for a silly prompt, so while everything here works out with none of the characters actually feeling harassed, it would be a pretty sketchy situation in real life. Get people's consent before sharing your dirty fantasies about them, please! ;)

“He's here again,” Furiosa says into the phone, face a bland mask of indifference as she stares resolutely ahead, only keeping tabs on the man out the corners of her eyes. Every other day for the past month and a half there's been the same stranger riding the office elevator as her, always at the same time, just as politely ignoring her. It would be fine and not a problem at all if he wasn't unfairly handsome, the right sort of rough-cut mixed with softness that she can't help but find attractive in a man.

It had quickly become a habit to call Cheedo, usually on a recess break herself, and complain about the angles of the man's face and how generally unfair it was for him to be so attractive. It wasn't the sort of thing she normally did, but there were extenuating circumstances (he'd been carrying a tiny adorable puppy one day, wrapped up in what looked to be the shirt off his own back, leaving his unreasonable arms on display), and it wasn't as if he could hear her, anyway.

“Did you try the signs?” Cheedo's voice asks over the line, “Like I showed you! It's easy.”

The problem was that this man in particular was deaf. Helpful for allowing Furiosa to vent her frustrations aloud in peace, not so much when it came time to actually interact with him.

The first time she'd seen him he had been signing rapid-pace with a small child, though the sprog she hasn't seen since. Then Cheedo happened to be tagging along on what was a day off for her, wanting to visit Angharad and Capable at the office, and shared the elevator. Evidently she knew the man to some extent because the two of them signed all the way to his usual floor, though she'd refused to say anything more about him, not even what his name was.

“You already learned them, you should just go for it!”

“Fine! Fine, but I'm hanging up.” Cheedo calls out another encouragement before Furiosa hits to end the call, stowing the phone away. Her nub was bare today, so even if she wanted to have Cheedo laugh at her over the phone in the name of 'moral support', there was no way to sign and hold the mobile at the same time.

She turns to regard the man, who so far has seemed content to pretty much ignore her, and wonders how to get his attention without making noise or doing something either rude or ridiculous. Perhaps fortunately, he quickly seems to notice her staring and looks in her direction, expression mildly curious.

The sign for 'hello' was about as basic as you could get. Cheedo had shown her a few variations, but a simple one-handed wave and a bit of a smile was more than enough to get the point across.

The man returns her smile with a mildly cautious one of his own, and then sends a wave her way.

So far, so good. Furiosa can't help but feel silly as she asks how he's doing. In English it would be a barely thought-about question, the sort of thing she feels obligated to automatically ask and answer practically every ten minutes. When signing, it's a thumb's up. There's a little more to it- she has to touch her chest with her hand open-palm, then slide off before moving her fingers- but overall it feels like a joke.

The man's smile deepens in sincerity, which only highlights how unfair his mouth is, before he nods and repeats the sign. Cheedo had told her that it served as both question and answer, which at least Furiosa could appreciate for the fact that it cut out some of the back-and-forth of spoken language.

That was as far into the impromptu lesson as she'd gotten, so she really hopes he doesn't try to sign anything else to her. Thankfully his stop on the elevator comes up, and with a parting wave he steps out.

  
  


The next time they share a lift, Furiosa keeps the phone running. Pausing a conversation to toss off a greeting was easy enough, and her prosthesis was certainly capable of holding her mobile without trouble while she used her flesh hand to sign.

“He's here, hold on,” she says to Cheedo, halting a story about what one of 'her' children had done during reading time. Furiosa waves out a 'hello' to the man, and this time he's the one to slide into the 'how are you/I'm fine' sign.

After she gives him a thumb's up he nods, and then brings his hand up to his head, half his fingers extended and the rest curled inwards. He taps the fingers against his forehead and then swings them around to point outwards, holding it for a moment before dropping into another sign.

“Oh no,” Furiosa says into the phone, “He's signing something else.” She hadn't had the chance for any more 'lessons', and honestly hadn't anticipated that the man would want to say anything else.

“What does it look like?” Cheedo asks, voice reassuring.

“Well, he saluted,” Furiosa says, having absolutely no context for the motions, “And now he's fluttering his hands around.”

He was moving slowly enough, obviously guessing that she was a beginner. Unfortunately, despite the intrigue he presented, the last time she'd visited Cheedo's classroom she'd barely glanced over the sign language charts in favor of re-learning how to count to ten in French. His hand signs are utterly meaningless to her.

“He's probably telling you his name,” Cheedo replies. “That's good! Um, but we didn't go over the alphabet yet.”

“I'm aware of that,” Furiosa says, restraining a sigh, and sends an apologetic shrug towards the man. He nods understandingly, and lifts one of his shoulders in a shrug of his own, something self-depreciating in his expression.

“Now I feel bad,” she grouses, “I told you this was a bad idea.”

“It'll be fine!” Cheedo replies, “We can go over the alphabet tonight, and then you can even sign him your name in return.”

The doors ding open for the man's floor and Furiosa uses the flapping 'goodbye' gesture, fingers curling down towards her palm instead of waving the entire hand. His mouth quirks back up into a smile and he waves back, before slipping out.

“I am so screwed,” Furiosa mutters to herself, leaning back to thunk her head against the wall of the elevator. On the phone where she's immune to the heartfelt glare being sent her way Cheedo just giggles, all innocence as if she and her girlfriend weren't at least partially to blame.

Furiosa would have been content staying single, meeting people for quick hook-ups when the mood struck as she had been doing, but suddenly she was surrounded by couples determined to share the joy.

Angharad and Valkyrie were old news, but their decision to add a baby had thrown everyone else into overdrive, it seemed. Suddenly Capable and her boy were talking about maybe moving in together, Cheedo and Dag had stepped up their already over-the-top displays of affection to whole new levels- even Toast had admitted that her latest string of “one night stands” had been the same person, and they'd decided to just suck it up and try dating for real.

Furiosa was the ninth wheel on this very strange vehicle, and while they all made time for each other, she did have to admit that she wouldn't be adverse to finding someone of her own for nights when the rest were out doing couple things. Elevator guy just happened to make an appealing target, despite the need to learn what amounted to a new language- and if things went truly south, she could always just alter her routine a little to avoid running into him.

  
  


Halfway through listening to Toast tell a rambling story about what new assholeish thing her asshole of a manager had said to her that day, Cheedo seems to remember the phone call from earlier in the day. She turns in her seat to fix Furiosa with a critical gaze, sets down her beer bottle with a decisive clank.

“You said the elevator guy signed something to you?” she asks, leaning in.

“Hey!” Toast interjects, “I wasn't done.”

Dag waves her hand lazily from her spot at Cheedo's side, “Your manager's an ass and you're going to quit 'one of these days, no really, I _am_!' We get it. Aren't you curious about Furiosa's elevator guy?”

Furiosa takes a long pull from her own bottle to buy time out of the conversation, but all that happens is Toast sighs and relents, ceding the discussion. It's far easier to complain about the man when she can't actually see the people she's talking to, but she has well and truly brought this on herself, so there's not much point in avoiding it forever.

“Yeah, he signed something,” she says when it becomes clear that, no matter how slightly-tipsy Cheedo might have been, she wasn't planning on letting the topic drop in favor of returning to listening to Toast. “Not that I know what he was trying to say.”

“So, he did this?” Cheedo asks, and raises her hand to demonstrate. She has her pointer finger extended into a soft curve, the rest loosely held out of the way, and taps her temple before swinging the hand out to point at Furiosa, doubling back like she was tapping on glass.

It's similar, but definitely not the same. “Not really,” she replies with a shake of her head, “There were more fingers, and he just pointed without moving?”

She tries to replicate it, fingers feeling clumsy, and thinks that it looks like a poor imitation of scout's salute. Dag sniggers, which earns her a halfhearted glare that does nothing to deter her.

“Oh! Okay, it's basically the same thing,” Cheedo says, “Just a little more formal. The first was sort of, a nickname? While this,” she pauses to demonstrate the sign: thumb and two fingers extended together, the other two curled inwards, tapped against the forehead and then pointed outwards. It looks identical to the gesture the man had made earlier, as far as Furiosa can tell. “It's more for your actual name.”

The distinction does make some sense, considering she was a total stranger accosting him in the elevator. She wouldn't introduce herself by nickname, not when they had nothing in common but apparently working in the same building.

“Um, did he use two hands or one when he signed his name?” Cheedo asks.

“Two,” Furiosa replies, and sends a rueful glance down at where the stub of her arm is free of her prosthesis. She won't be able to even attempt to replicate any of those signs without strapping it back on, even if she did remember them clearly.

“Well, there is a one-handed alphabet you can use. It's American, but pretty much everyone learns it anyway, so I'm sure he'll already know it.” The topic of her missing arm rarely comes up directly with people she's known as long as she has these girls, but it's still such a visible part of her that she wonders if Cheedo had been preparing a subtle way to mention the alternative signs all evening.

“Alright,” Furiosa says easily, since there isn't much choice. Even with the prosthetic hand on, the precise finger movements needed would be a huge strain to replicate reliably- frankly, not worth it for a little flirting.

Cheedo stands up from the table to rummage through a stack of papers on her nearby desk, returning with sheet that was a little crumpled but readable. It's decorated with simple line drawings of hands arranged into the signs of the alphabet, and Furiosa smiles to herself to see that she'd cared enough to go through the trouble of looking it up and printing it out.

“Okay, so let's run through the alphabet,” Cheedo says when she retakes her seat, slipping into her teacher voice. “This is 'A'...”

Toast, however, groans. “Do you really have to do this now?”

“She has a point, babe,” Dag says, wrapping an arm back around her shoulders. “Toast has to get across town, Furiosa's just down the block. Save the lesson for later?”

“Oh alright,” Cheedo agrees, and folds the paper up before holding it out in front of Furiosa. “You'd better hang onto this.”

She accepts the paper and tucks it into her pocket, hoping this will be the end of the conversation. Unfortunately, Dag cocks her head to the side and grins, “So, elevator guy still hasn't run scared?”

“Well it's not like he can hear her speculate about, what was it, how his beard might feel when she sits on his face?” Toast replies, and ah yes, Furiosa had forgotten that the entire group had been present for that particular rant.

She doesn't blush, because she is a grown woman who can own up to her sexuality. Her face is just warm from the beer she's been drinking, is all.

  
  


There's a stranger in the elevator the next time Furiosa sees the man, which means she doesn't feel comfortable enough attempting to sign to him but she also can't complain on the phone _about_ him, either. The stranger gets off only a few floors earlier, barely leaving enough time for a quick wave of acknowledgment before the man walks out the lift's doors.

On the way back down at the end of the day, however, she runs into him again. It's less usual for them to end up on the same elevator after work gets out, but sometimes it lines up.

Furiosa immediately dials Cheedo, hoping that she's not entangled in anything pressing. Like driving, or sucking face with Dag. Thankfully she picks up just as the man finishes his 'how are you/I'm fine' thumb's up, which means Furiosa is ready to start moving into her memorized signs.

“I may need to you translate,” she says in lieu of a greeting when Cheedo picks up.

There's a burst of soft laughter and then, “Alright, where should I meet you?”

“No, just over the phone. I'm still in the elevator, trying to sign my name,” Furiosa replies, stumbling over the movement for 'R' as she speaks. Going by the man's confused face either she had mucked it up, or he was assuming she had because of how unusual her name is. Or, despite Cheedo's reassurance, he didn't know the one-handed alphabet after all and only signs using Auslan.

“Okay, let me know what you need.”

“Oh, he's using the same alphabet,” Furiosa says with some relief, before realizing that the man was in fact parroting back her name.

“He signed my name back,” she lets Cheedo know. It looked like it was spelled right, unless she was confusing the letters, so she nods, and attempts one of the 'yes' gestures Cheedo had shown her. Other than the classic thumb's up most used two hands, but this was a simple closed fist, rocked back and forth on the wrist.

“It _is_ unusual,” Cheedo replies cheerily.

The confusion on the man's face doesn't really clear up, but he does smile. The elevator jolts to a stop and opens onto the ground floor, and he gestures for her to exit.

She pauses just outside of the lift, wondering if she should just keep walking out the lobby like usual, but- she wants to know what the man's name is. It was only fair.

He steps out and comes to a stop a few paces away from her, slightly further than the elevator allowed but certainly not a huge distance. Then he lifts his hand to his head to repeat the 'my name is' sign, but instead of flowing into the two-handed Auslan signs like he had originally, he uses the same one-handed alphabet as her.

“All of his fingers folded over the thumb... 'M'?” Furiosa narrates, uncertain since it wasn't one of the letters she had practiced.

“If they're flat, it's 'M',” Cheedo replies. “Bunched-up looking is 'N'.”

The 'A' he signs next she recognizes easily, but the third letter is a mystery. “His hand's sideways, with one finger crooked on top?”

“Could be 'X',” Cheedo says, “Is he still going?”

“No, I think that's it,” Furiosa replies. The man patiently runs through the sequence again, starting from the 'my name is' sign, and it's definitely only three letters.

“M-A-X,” Furiosa says out loud as he signs, “Max. Well, it's easy enough to remember.”

She gives signing it back at him a shot, pleased when it earns her the largest smile yet and the same 'yes' sign that she used earlier.

From the few times they've departed the elevator at the same time she already know that they use different exits, so she waves a goodbye and heads out, feeling strangely light for having just spent a day bent over heavy paperwork.

  
  


Of course, it falls apart rather quickly after that.

Furiosa's been roped into helping out for Cheedo's parent-teacher conference day slash school's open house, despite being neither a parent nor a teacher. It was supposed to be just helping tidy up the classroom and make photocopies before the event started, but somehow it turns into her spending most of the night at the school alongside Cheedo, herding unruly children through the halls and fielding questions from far too many parents.

She's not expecting to see the elevator guy here, so when she spies his face she reflexively calls out his name with a measure of relief, despite remembering even as the word tumbles out that he won't be able to hear her. Except- his head does swivel around, eyes meeting hers through the crowd, and that's definitely not the type of reaction a deaf person would have.

“Max?” she repeats, because that's definitely his face, but it's not quite lining up with what she knows about him. He'd never reacted at all to noises, before, even when she was being quite blatant with her comments.

“Oh, Capable lost that bet,” Cheedo says with a stifled laugh. Furiosa breaks away from Max's deer-in-headlights expression to look at her, unease squirming in her belly.

“Cheedo,” she says, “What bet?”

“That you'd find out he wasn't deaf before you asked him out. Dag and I said you'd figure it out before, Toast thought it would happen _during_ the date, and Capable said he'd confess later.”

“He's not deaf,” Furiosa says, “And you all knew. And you were just, what, enjoying watching me make an as-” she bites back the curse, mindful of the children milling around the room, “a fool of myself?”

“It wasn't like _that_ ,” Cheedo says, “We all thought it was funny, even Max! Because you're usually so good about this stuff, but this time you just assumed and made a mistake. That's all, really.” She pauses, expression turning somewhat stricken, “It's not funny if you're really upset. ...Furi? You're not upset, are you?”

“Ah,” a male voice says from fairly close, and Furiosa twists violently to see that it's Max. “I'm sorry,” he says, voice low. “Should have spoken up.” Damnit, she can't even enjoy the fact that his voice is a delightful sort of rough perfectly in keeping with his appearance because this whole situation is now horribly fucked up.

There's a kid hanging off his hand, and if he's here at the parent-teacher conference that means the sprog is probably his, which means Cheedo must know quite a bit more about him than she ever let on.

Furiosa isn't sure who she should be more angry at. Herself, for making assumptions and then running with them, Max for not speaking up, herself again for making such an uncomfortable environment that he probably didn't feel as if he _could_ speak up, or Cheedo and the others who apparently knew both sides but still let the whole thing get as far as it did. She is undoubtedly angry, but it's an amorphous, directionless feeling, and as such is doing no good at all.

“I need to go,” she says, unwilling to hash this out in a room full of children and eagle-eyed parents. Cheedo looks as if she wants to protest, but Max just nods in acceptance, and neither stops her as she slips out of the room and escapes to her car.

  
  


Furiosa leaves early for the office after that, takes the stairs on the way down. It's a coward's way out to avoid running into Max, but she can't bring herself to face him quite yet.

She never would have said those things about him if she thought he might understand- one thing to talk about her attraction with her friends, where he might never hear, and another entirely to give those thoughts voice right to his face. It was tantamount to harassment, and she feels a sick roil of guilt every time she even thinks about it.

  
  


She gives Capable a ride from the office to a favorite restaurant of the group's, where they were due to meet up with everyone. Angharad had left early in the day, citing a stomach bug, which-

“They're going to have to announce it, already,” Capable says. “We all know she's pregnant.”

“That's what tonight is,” Furiosa replies, and immediately wants to bite her tongue and take it back.

“That sounded like an assumption,” Capable says, tone teasing. They had all been pretty mild about the whole Max thing, none of them bringing up how horrible her behavior had been, but even the reminder grates on her nerves.

“Can we drop it?” she asks, “Just for tonight. Please.” They're nearly at the restaurant, and it would be nice if she had at least one person on her side to not bring it up. She really doesn't want to discuss her misstep in such a public place, especially if Angharad really is announcing a pregnancy and thus should have nothing but a joyful night.

“You know,” Capable says, “he was fine with it? I mean, Cheedo talked to him when he picked up his kid, and she said that he said it was flattering.”

“Please, just don't,” Furiosa repeats, focusing her attention on finding a parking space.

Capable lets out a sigh, “I think you're being too hard on yourself, but alright. Let's go taunt Angharad with booze until she spills the beans, yeah?”

That she can agree to. When they walk inside the restaurant is fairly well packed, but it's easy to find the table their friends have staked out, two spots left open for them.

When they're all seated and finished greeting each other (mostly Capable and her boyfriend exchanging kisses while the rest roll their eyes), Valkyrie picks up her water glass and holds it aloft.

“A toast!” she says, throwing a wink in Toast's direction, as if the joke hasn't been said countless times already. “More of an announcement, really.”

Besides her Angharad gives her a besotted smile, and then turns to grin out over the table. “I'm pregnant!”

It's exactly the news everyone expected to hear, and they break out into cheering and congratulations. Furiosa is half expecting to have someone in management come over to tell them to quiet down, so she doesn't startle when someone walks up behind her and clears their throat as the noise dies down. She turns, ready to half-assedly promise that they'll be quiet from now on, but the words die on her tongue because it's Max she sees.

“Max,” she says, half a question, and quickly darts a glance at Dag sitting besides her, wondering if this was a set-up. Dag shakes her head and doesn't both to hider her curiosity with a faux-innocent expression, which means it's probably not anyone in the group's doing.

“Furiosa,” he says in return, “I didn't expect to run into you. But, I want to apologize.”

Apparently this was going to happen, but a crowded restaurant surrounded by her closest friends was hardly a more ideal location than the classroom had been. Furiosa stands from the table abruptly. “Not here,” she says, and Max nods understandingly, follows her out the back doors into the dim parking lot.

“Why are you apologizing?” she asks after taking a deep breath of the fresh night air, “I'm the one who _sexually harassed_ you.”

Max clears his throat again, shifts his weight from foot to foot. “I lied,” he says, “I let you think... I shouldn't have listened in; I should have told you.”

It's a weak defense, considering how uncomfortable she can only imagine some of the things she remembers saying must have made him. True, he hadn't acted particularly uncomfortable- never switched out the elevator, smiled and went along with her fumbling attempts at signing, didn't say anything to Cheedo when ever it was he saw her. But those are all rationalizations, and she's supposed to know better than to fall into that trap.

“I should be the one apologizing,” she says with a shake of her head. “And I am sorry, Max.”

“I did want to say something,” he says, and her gaze snaps to his, but he only shrugs. “But... I liked it. Hearing what you thought. About me.”

“I'm pretty sure I said I wanted to punch you at least once,” Furiosa says, in case he somehow forgot about that. She was joking at the time, mostly, but it was hardly a good idea to get involved with someone who joked about wishing you harm. Even if it was just because she was frustrated over being subjected to sharing an elevator on a regular basis with a man who looked like he did.

Max make a sort of wordless noise and ducks his head, “You also said you wanted to kiss me.” Among other, more graphic fantasies that she's rather glad he's not mentioning.

Furiosa briefly covers her face with her flesh hand, and resists the urge to sigh. “Look, I obviously find you attractive, and apparently you have questionable taste yourself, but this? This is a horrible way to start anything. Can we start over, maybe?”

He visibly think it over for a moment before nodding, a small smile on his still-ridiculous lips. “Hi,” he says, “My name's Max. We share an elevator, I think?”

She does sigh this time, “I meant later. But- alright. Hi Max, I'm Furiosa, and it's nice to meet you.”

 

(As it turns out, his beard feels just as pleasant against her skin as she imagined- and even better, all that practice with signing has made his fingers quite nimble indeed.)

 


End file.
